In this companion volume to John Grant's highly successful Discarded Science - Ideas That Seemed Good at the Time, we are introduced to the world of fraud and deception rather than the gentler realms of mistake and ignorance. Grant is as entertaining as ever, but his theme is serious and timely.

In an age when politicians and zealots alike are using their every effort to corrupt our and our children's knowledge and understanding of science, and to a terrifyingly large extent succeeding, this witty, erudite and joyously readable book could not be more urgent.

It was very depressing to realize that, when looking around for regimes that have systematically corrupted science within the past century or so, three stand out quite distinctly, head and shoulders above the rest of the herd: Hitler's Germany, Stalin's Russia, and Bush's America. At times when working on the three relevant chapters I had to remind myself which chapter was the one in front of me: the parallels between the three regimes, in terms of their vigorous attempts to trample honest science underfoot, are as horrifically close as that - John Grant, 2007.

For his nonfiction, John Grant has twice been the winner of the Hugo Award, science fiction's highest honour, and has received various other international awards. He was a Contributing Editor to The Phaidon Concise Encyclopedia of Science & Technology and was Co-Editor of Planet Earth: An Encyclopedia of Geology. Scottish-born, he lives in New Jersey, USA.